There is such a thing as society...

Things seem to be picking up pace on the house front, with significant steps forward – even if not an awful lot is to show for them. If you want glamour, stand by (hopefully) for when the bathroom is completed but the work of the past three days has been somewhat more basic but necessary.

Monday, Loris of ground levelling fame paid his second visit. This time it was with another of his wonderful machines, one to hammer in giant wooden stakes that looked apt defence against some Brobdingagian vampire. Stephen, fresh from his triumph over the two trees, flexed his biceps and sallied forth to assist with the process. It wasn’t long, however, before Loris decided that his ageing father would be more help and called him up. He should worry, if he’d had me to help he would have had to retire with a fit of the vapours, Lady Bertram like, to recline on a chaise longue and feed tidbits to Pug.

As if this wasn’t enough for one day, Alessandro (see, there really are only four names used for boys in Italy) the electrician gave the house a once over and sorted out the sockets in the kitchen, ready for the new units to be fitted next week.

Yesterday was one of those occasions when I wonder what happened to my DIY gene; I guess the sperm that won the race to the ova when I was conceived jettisoned it to gain more momentum, along with the football gene, the barbecue gene and the fiddling in sheds gene. However, I did try to look sort of interested when we visited Giordano’s store in search of fencing and support struts for the garden, which were duly ordered by Stephen because he is much more macho about these things. And here we have the beauty of dealing with local firms – as they were all delivered today, at no extra cost. What’s more, anything we don’t use we can take back and get a credit note for. It seems the more time I spend in MSP the more it seems to be how you imagine life was in 1950s Britain.

Which brings us to today and the best bit yet: we finally had the upstairs of the house professionally cleaned by a wonderful man from Francavilla and his assistant. I was not witness to the process, but the place was awash, and to good effect too. We always knew that we could make the place into a cherished home, but when we drove down hill this evening and I saw it in the evening sun with all the shutters open and the windows gleaming it confirmed that we have made the right choice.

Or have we? Leaping Luca made another visit for some reason this afternoon, and again gave us the benefit of his vast experience of buying houses and living in the countryside (i.e. when he married twenty-odd years ago he moved into an apartment that had been made for him in his family’s former house in the town and has stayed there ever since). Seemingly, one good rainstorm and the entire hillside is going to slide inexorably into our living room. Why it will have waited all these years before deciding to do is anybody’s guess but no doubt I could be bothered to ask him he’d have an unfounded opinion about that too.

On a lighter note, Stephen and I were on lunch duty today as Flavia had gone with her husband, Romolo, Pierot and Terese to visit Carassai, an old fortified bastion from the days when Italy’s city states battled amongst themselves. This one had something to do with curtailing the power of the Papacy – as ever, history serves to show that things never change. I think we passed muster as Remo ate the pasta and seemed to find enough to satisfy his view on what constitutes a proper lunch. And with there only being three of us, I, albeit temporarily, had a place at the table where I could see the television without twisting into contortions - though it didn’t help me understand it any better. Still, it was only Don Matteo, an Italian detective series that is like a less exciting but more improbable Midsomer Murders. Italian TV is wonderful.